Artist Redone

Forty-year-old Harsh Sinha uknowingly stumbles into the world of art when he ends up spending almost all his life’s savings on a particular painting. Sinha — overweight,unhappy and in the throes of a mid life crisis — chucks his job in Mumbai and goes back home to his wife and daughter,in Chennai. But things are not the way he had left them: the artist next-door has caught his wife’s fancy. It is at this vulnerable juncture that Sinha falls into the clutches of the Indian art world and the artists that inhabit it.

Harsh Sinha is the protagonist of Artist,Undone,debut novel of art dealer and collector V Sanjay Kumar — one of the few fictional works revolving around the art world. “The art world is a fascinating area where aesthetics and commerce sometimes walk hand in hand. My book tries to capture some of the spirit that pervades this world,” says the author,who changed professions in 1988,when he gave up his job in the financial services sector to open Sakshi Gallery in Chennai. The 234-page book,published by Hachette India,will be launched in Gurgaon next Saturday. Autobiographical “to a certain extent”,Kumar admits that his association with the art world — with the dealers and collectors he met,and the art fairs he visited the world over — played a big role while he was writing the book. “For me,this book is nothing but sweet revenge — the art world has been messing with my mind (and pocket) for years,and Artist,Undone is my way of uncovering this world of intrigue,” he says.